Fsf-friends November 2004

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

36 participants
53 discussions

To open software within three years
by Manjush G.Menon 26 Sep '05

26 Sep '05

Original Message ----- From: "IT@School" <itschool(a)asianetindia.com> To: <manjushmenon(a)hotmail.com> Sent: Saturday, October 05, 2002 5:08 PM Subject: Reply > Mr.Manjush G. Menon > We are not giving to depend totally on Ms. Products. Rather MS > Office is taught along with open office and Windows along with Linux > from this year. Arranging the resource persons for training an open > software, making available the software, the maintenance of a help desk > etc. are logistical issues which could not be immediately undertaken. > We plan switch out to open software within three years. > Executive Director > ---- Original Message ----- From: Manjush G. Menon To: itschool(a)asianetindia.com Sent: Friday, October 04, 2002 5:46 PM Subject: Respected sir, From Manjush G. Menon, Sr.Programmer, Sofker Solutions Pvt Ltd, Kochi-18. To The Executive Director, 'IT @ SCHOOL' Project, SCERT Buildings, Poojapura, Thiruvananthapuram-12. Respected sir, SUB: In protest against the inclusion of products from multinational companies in the syllabus of 'IT @ SCHOOL' It's a very dissappointing fact that when the whole world is moving towards Free software, we at kerala are going behind a major MNC - Microsoft. I hereby register my protest in such an act from 'IT @ SCHOOL' Project team. Breaking of prototypes will definetly help us in finding economical and high quality products for our future generation. For students and programmers, the GNU Linux contains 'GNU Compiler Collections' which includes C, C++, FORTRAN, PERL, TCL etc. Also, for DTP and other publishing purposes, it includes GNU Office utilities like Abi-Word, gedit, and other worksheet utilities, all these with a nominal cost of Rs 700-800/-. The software as it is, is free and the cost is accounted towards the media (CD + Documentation) included. By this letter, I urge you to take this matter seriously and suggest necessary modifications in the action plan of 'IT @ SCHOOL' project. Wishing you all the best and wishing all 'Students @ SCHOOL' a bright future, Thanking you, Yours faithfully Manjush G. Menon. ______________________________________________________ Check out all the latest outrageous email attachments on the Outrageous Email Chart! - http://viral.lycos.co.uk

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[Fsf-friends] NSS COLLEGE OF ENGG Free Software Fwd:NSS COLLEGE OF ENGG Free SoftwareUsers group
by Praveen A 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

hello, can any one help NSS COLLEGE OF ENGG Free Software Users group to conduct a workshop or awareness program on Free Software philosophy and GNU/linux? -----Forwarded Message----- From: Dileep M. Kumar <dileep(a)symonds.net> To: FSUG-Kochi-Discuss(a)symonds.net Subject: [fsug-kochi-discuss] [Fwd: NSS COLLEGE OF ENGG Free Software Users group] Date: 27 Nov 2004 19:25:30 +0530 Any takers ? Regards -- Dileep -------- Original Message -------- Subject: NSS COLLEGE OF ENGG Free Software Users group Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 05:30:03 +0000 (GMT) From: santhosh thottingal <santhoshthottingal(a)yahoo.co.in> To: dileep(a)kumarayil.net Sir, We have a Free Software users group in our NSS College of Engineering,Plakkad, named as FOX-Free software and Open systems eXtended. We understood that most of the students not aware of the Free software movement and GNU or they are misunderstanding the meaning and the mission. In this scenario we would like to conduct an awareness programme in the form of a seminar or workshop. We think that you are used to conduct these type of programmes and you can help us. If you are interested please reply us in email. Santhosh T R, Coordinator-Fox club, Dept of Computer Science and Engg. NSS college of Engineering, Palakkad-678595. Email: santhoshthottingal(a)yahoo.co.in desert_orion(a)yahoo.com -- ~vimal -- --- A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk

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FSF and GNU, and other talks on Free Software
by Ramanraj K 01 Dec '04

01 Dec '04

Recently, the ILUGC organised a demo day for IEEE [pronounced as I-triple-E] at the Central Lecture Theatre, IIT Madras. Brief minutes about the meet is available at: http://www.chennailug.org/meeting/minutes/yr2004/ilugc-112004.html My talk was on on "FSF and GNU", and the slides I used for the talk is available at: http://personal.vsnl.com/ramanraj/FSF_and_GNU.tar.gz [99K] The purpose of the talk was to briefly introduce FSF and GNU to an audience totally new to free software. I should thank Bharathi for organising the event, giving the opportunity and for choosing a nice topic to talk about :) Though I used OO Impress for the talk, I have converted the file for use with MagicPoint, a X11 based presentation tool. The presentation file (FSF_and_GNU.mgp) is just a text file which may be easily modified or improved. MagicPoint allows presentation files to be created quickly with a text editor, building with tag directives for embedding graphics, grabbing command outputs into foils for live displays during presentations etc. After installing MagicPoint, to start the presentation give the command: # mgp <file_name> Official home page of MagicPoint is at: http://www.Mew.org/mgp/ Shakthi Kannan, gave a presentation on "GNU/Linux Software Applications for Engineers and Tech Support" and is available for download from http://www.geocities.com/cyborg4k/ieee1104.tar.gz [1MB] released under the Creative Commons-Attribution/Non-commercial/ Shared-Alike Version 2.0 License:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ Sivasankar Chander also introduced Gnu/Linux to the audience, but I do not have the link to his slides. In all, about 30 IEEE members, 70 IIT-M Students, and few others attended the demo day workshop. __

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to anand babu. guile project
by ISAAC PRAVEEN 30 Nov '04

30 Nov '04

Anand, Guile is pretty ineresting for sure. Are there anyoone working on it from India? isaac praveen ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anand Babu" <ab(a)gnu.org.in> To: "Principal Support List of FSF-India" <fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in> Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] any lisp programmers? Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 04:24:19 -0800 > > > http://www.gnu.org.in/mailinglists.html > Fsf-prog (FSF India Programmers List) is more appropriate list to > discuss this topic. > > ,----[ "ISAAC PRAVEEN" <satriani(a)linuxmail.org> ] > | Would like to know if there are any Lisp programmers, not essentially > | AI programming. I work on common Lisp and Scheme (the future exn > | language for GNU)! > `---- > Yes, I use GNU Guile for Scheme programming. I found Scheme much more > powerful and easer than Python. Some of my own projects (like GNU > FreeIPMI, Freehoo) uses Scheme. My desktop environment (GNU Emacs, > Gnus, Sawfish...) is mostly Lisp extensible. > > > ,----[ "ISAAC PRAVEEN" <satriani(a)linuxmail.org> ] > | Currently, writing an extension language called ACE-lisp for > | algebraic(symbolic) computing. Not a replica of maxima though! Just > | for fun. > `---- > I would very much recommend you to contribute it to GNU Guile project. > > -- > Anand Babu > Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org> > > _______________________________________________ > Fsf-friends mailing list > Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in > http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends > Ph: 9886120247 Computing and Cognitive Neuroscience div. THE GAMMA MATRIX PROJECT Turing Lab Bangalore, India -- ______________________________________________ Check out the latest SMS services @ http://www.linuxmail.org This allows you to send and receive SMS through your mailbox. Powered by Outblaze

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Learning to *use* free software
by Ramanraj K 29 Nov '04

29 Nov '04

>Rakesh 'arky' Ambati wrote: >--- Sriharsha Vedurmudi ><sriharsha.v(a)redpinesignals.com> wrote: >Is this "Project Shiksha" (Shiksha -> Teachin) or >'Project Siksha' (Siksha -> Punishment)? >http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2004/nov/25ms.htm >So, M$ is now kicking off with a colourful Trojan >Horse..... Generally, we cannot go by such unofficial reports which may be false or incorrect based on rumours. We would need to go by information from more authoritative sources. If the MOU is true, it is a very serious issue calling for swift action. Regardless of whether the MOU is true or false, we need to apprise the concerned officials with a few facts. It has taken a great deal of effort, enthusiasm and energy, of FSF, RMS, Eric Raymond, Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox and thousands of other developers, to create a totally free operating system, that is robust, secure and open. After more than two decades of hard work, we just have to take what is being served on a plate and eat it. The advocacy these days is more on merely *using* free software, that is much, much easier than *developing* free software. A government that cares for the welfare of its people would never ignore free software. Probably a memorandum could be addressed to the Govt of WB to take note of the free software movement, pointing to very fine examples from around the world, particularly Brazil, the whole of Africa, and Europe. The following report is particularly interesting: http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/Africa-Becoming-Vast-Frontier-for-Free-an… I am sure mere representations to the Govt. of WB should bring in desired changes, and PIL or other action would only come last of all, if necessary at all. Regards, Ramanraj.

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by Praveen A 28 Nov '04

28 Nov '04

Wikipedia now feature Firefox in its main page ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page -- A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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[Fsf-friends] Linux and windows face to face : Linux overtakes Mac on desktops
by Praveen A 28 Nov '04

28 Nov '04

There is a good discussion going on in spymac.com discussion forum in a thread started by me. It would be nice if you just go through it. Many arguments for an aginst free software and linux adoption is there. Also if you want to get an audience who don't know what linux is and who want to know what it is. It is ideal place to discuss. One important difference there is that majority on the forum use Mac OS X, very difficult to convert than Windows. they say it is secure ( It is Unix -- a BSD variant). They say it is powerful and userfriendly. It is worth signing up and join the discussions. All Free software evangelists come out and join me in this effort. http://www.spymac.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=107392 Praveen A -- A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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Firefox on Wikipedia main page as Featured article
by Praveen A 28 Nov '04

28 Nov '04

See the Wikipedia Page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page -- --- A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk

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STORY:- Security Report: Windows vs Linux
by Praveen A 28 Nov '04

28 Nov '04

Biting the hand that feeds IT This is a story published on The Register, the UK's leading IT news web site. You can find the original at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/security/security_report_windows_vs_linux/ I saw this on The Register and thought of you. Enjoy! Security Report: Windows vs Linux An independent assessment By Nicholas Petreley Friday 22nd October 2004 07:26 GMT * Executive Summary * Busting The Myths + Myth: There's Safety In Small Numbers + Myth: Open Source is Inherently Dangerous + Myths: Conclusions Based on Single Metrics * Windows vs. Linux Design + Windows Design o Windows has only recently evolved from a single-user design to a multi-user model o Windows is Monolithic by Design, not Modular o Windows Depends Too Heavily on the RPC model o Windows focuses on its familiar graphical desktop interface + Linux Design o Linux is based on a long history of well fleshed-out multi-user design o Linux is Modular by Design, not Monolithic o Linux is Not Constrained by an RPC Model o Linux servers are ideal for headless non-local administration * Realistic Security and Severity Metrics + Elements of an Overall Severity Metric o Overall Severity Metric and Interaction Between the Three Key Metrics o The Exception To The Rule o Applying The Overall Severity Metric + Means Of Evaluating Metrics o Exposure Potential o Exploitation Potential o Damage Potential o Overall Severity Risk + Additional Considerations o Application Imbalance o Setup and Administration * A Comparison of 40 Recent Security Patches + Patches and Vulnerabilities Affecting Microsoft Windows Server 2003 + Patches and Vulnerabilities Affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS v.3 * CERT Vulnerability Notes Database Results * References * Footnotes Executive Summary Much ado has been made about whether or not Linux is truly more secure than Windows. We compared Windows vs. Linux by examining the following metrics in the 40 most recent patches/vulnerabilities listed for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS v.3: ... Keep yourself fully informed by signing up to receive The Register's daily or weekly newsletters http://go.theregister.com/k/newslettermf To read the rest of this story, find the original at http://www.theregister.co.uk/security/security_report_windows_vs_linux/. --- A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk

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[OFFTOPIC] India's march towards open access
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 27 Nov '04

27 Nov '04

Fascinating article, of relevance to those in the Free Software world. FN INDIA's MARCH TOWARDS OPEN ACCESS Subbiah Arunachalam Source: SciDev.Net +---------------------------------------------- Subbiah Arunachalam argues that the best way to make scientific research more available worldwide is to encourage scientists to self-archive their research. +----------------------------------------------+ In December 2003, the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) held a one-day conference on access to scientific data and information as part of its annual meeting in Pune. The conference was held to address two key problems faced by Indian scientists -- poor access to international journals and the low visibility of papers published by Indian scientists -- and the possible solutions offered by electronic publishing and open archives. Inaugurating the conference, Raghunath A. Mashelkar, director-general of India's Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, spoke of how international organisations such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) were helping developing countries improve electronic access to expensive journals through the HINARI and AGORA programmes, respectively. Unfortunately, however, India has not benefited from either of these programmes. Although journal publishers are willing to provide toll-free electronic access to researchers in countries where relatively few scientists read their journals, they are not prepared to do so in larger developing countries such as India, where they already have a considerable number of subscribers. Yet India's average gross domestic product (GDP) is, per capita, less than half the threshold agreed upon by the WHO and FAO when they set up the HINARI and AGORA programmes. A RADICAL RESPONSE So scientists in such countries need to find a more radical response by harnessing the new opportunities provided by information and communication technologies (ICTs). We need to break away from the existing model of publishing and communicating scientific knowledge. One way of doing this is to embrace the 'open-access' approach being promoted by the Budapest Open Access Initiative with its two complementary strategies of setting up interoperable open archives and promoting open-access journals. Several Indian publishers have already adopted the open-access philosophy for the electronic versions of their journals. Unlike some open-access journals in other countries, in which authors pay to publish their papers, Indian open-access journals use government grants and subscriptions to their print version to cover publishing costs. All 10 journals of the Indian Academy of Sciences, for example, as well as the four journals of INSA, are open-access journals. In fact, INSA has already produced free-access electronic versions of back volumes for all its journals, and the Indian Academy of Sciences is also attempting a similar 'retro-digitisation'. The Journal of the Indian Institute of Science is also available in this form back to its very first issue, published in 1914. The Indian Medlars Centre of the National Informatics Centre, New Delhi, is bringing out electronic versions of 22 biomedical journals, all of them accessible without subscription. The Medlars Centre also has an online bibliographic database, www.indmed.nic.in, providing titles and abstracts of articles from 77 Indian biomedical journals. Medknow Publications, a small company based in Mumbai, has helped 10 medical journals -- including the Journal of Post Graduate Medicine and Neurology India -- make the transition from print to electronic open access and all of them are doing much better now than before. In addition, some Indian open-access journals are using international agencies such as Bioline, a not-for-profit electronic publishing service for developing countries, and JournalServer.org, an online library of academic journals, to gain greater visibility. However, open-access publishing needs to be complemented by setting up interoperable institutional archives, which allow researchers to make versions of their articles publicly available online both before and after publication. An additional attraction of such archives is that they would raise the profile of Indian research. At present, research originating in an Indian laboratory and published in expensive journals all too often goes unnoticed, even by other researchers in India. Creating institutional archives of such work would help to integrate it into the global knowledge base, to reduce the isolation of our scientists and to improve opportunities for funding and international collaboration. The clear advantages offered by institutional archiving over the present publishing system, in which many research papers are held in the back issues of journals controlled by commercial (and some society) publishers in other countries, suggests that the government should have an interest in ensuring its success. India's University Grants Commission, for example, should insist that major universities with a large output of science and technology papers set up institutional archives. Other funding agencies -- such as the Department of Science & Technology, Department of Scientific & Industrial Research, Department of Biotechnology, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Space, Indian Council of Agricultural Research and Indian Council of Medical Research -- should also insist that research papers resulting from work supported by their funds be made available through open-access archives and toll-free journals. India is not the only country being drawn towards open access. In China - for example, among officials of the National Natural Science Foundation and the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information in China, as well as researchers with the Chinese Academy of Sciences -- there is already significant interest in its benefits to the country's scientists. Reflecting this interest, in mid-June 2004 China will hold a major national conference on open access in cooperation with the US National Academy of Sciences. And in the last week of June, the Eighth International Conference on Electronic Publishing will take place in Brasilia. The first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, held last December, has given a considerable boost to these efforts: the WSIS Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action include strong statements in favour of open access to scientific literature. UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has also offered his support. NURTURING THE NETWORK International action is one thing, but genuine free access is another. It will need a champion (or champions) in every institution to promote the creation of institutional archives, and persuade scientists to place their papers in them. Free access also requires adequate hardware and connectivity. Many universities and research institutions in the developing world lack both computers and high bandwidth Internet connectivity, so part of the strategy of open-access proponents must include campaigning for improved ICT facilities. Luckily, costs of both hardware and Internet bandwidth are coming down all over the world. Another important hurdle to overcome is the fact that many scientists labour under the impression that journal editors may not accept archived papers, claiming that this represents an unacceptable form of 'pre-publication'. These scientists worry that it will be difficult to assess the impact of their research if it isn't published in conventional journals. After all, they argue, promotions and awards are often determined by the impact factor of the journals in which one's work is published. Many are also unaware of the advantages of gaining greater visibility and are reluctant to make the effort to post their articles on archives. Just over a year ago, for example, the National Centre for Science Information (NCSI) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), the country's best-known higher education institution in science and technology, set up an institutional archive. The institute publishes about 1,800 papers a year, of which about 900 are indexed in the Web of Science, which gives access to the world's most prestigious, high impact research journals. Yet so far, the archive has attracted less than 70 papers. This experience emphasises an important point: it is not enough just to create an open-access archive. Filling it is far more important (and difficult). After all, an empty archive is worse than having no archive at all. But attitudes of the journals are changing, making institutional archiving a more attractive proposition. It is important for champions of open access to let scientists know that many journals, including high-impact titles such as Nature and the British Medical Journal, already permit authors to archive both preprints and postprints. The emphasis should therefore be on setting up open archives rather than on persuading journal publishers to make their journals open access. If scientists and scientific establishments in China, India and Brazil can be persuaded to adopt open access quickly, then it is likely that the rest of the developing world will follow. Related links: Indian National Science Academy Indian Academy of Sciences Indian Medlars Centre HINARI AGORA Budapest Open Access Initiative Bioline International JournalServer.org M S Swaminathan Research Foundation Quick guides: Science Publishing ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article is courtesy Scidev.net. Check out the new South Asia section of this website, focussing on science and development issues. -FN FORWARDED VIA: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) Nr Convent Saligao 403511 GoaIndia Freelance Journalist P: 832-2409490 M: 9822122436 http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks http://fn.swiki.net http://www.ryze.com/go/fredericknoronha http://fn-floss.notlong.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Difficulties to send email across? Write to fredericknoronha at vsnl.net ============================================================================ Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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Fsf-friends November 2004